Surge
by bravevulnerability
Summary: 'It isn't smart, isn't safe, but she can barely feel her fingers, her toes, as it is, and her mind is numb with him. It's worth a walk in the cold.' Early season 8 AU. Two shot.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Sending my warmest thoughts to those who endured the actual bomb cyclone and its after effects across the east coast of the United States and to anyone enduring a rough winter in general.**

 **Set anytime after 8x02, 'XX'. Only in this version of events, Castle and Beckett don't continue seeing each other after she leaves.**

* * *

 _'You traced your hands_  
 _Across my back_  
 _You whispered_  
 _"If time could only take us back_  
 _Would you take me back?"'_

 _-Cologne, Haux_

* * *

She's going to freeze to death.

Kate curls in on herself in the slim bed, pulling the plain white sheet to her chin and trying to think of anything but the chill creeping in beneath the covers, threading through her clothes to spread ice along her skin. But it's hard enough for her to get any sleep on a good night, let alone on the coldest of the year with temperatures only continuing to drop. Power was reported to be out city-wide due to the ominous 'bomb cyclone' that's overtaken the east side of the country and the studio apartment she's been renting these last few weeks is hardly made to withstand such conditions. The heating rarely works to begin with, she could never stay warm even before the frigid weather hit.

Castle would probably be thrilled for the opportunity for them to be stuck inside on a snow day. He would set up candles everywhere, build a blanket fort, make it fun while finding a way to keep her warm the entire time.

Instead, she's alone, shivering beneath two barriers of blankets and at least three layers of clothing.

She squeezes her eyes shut, but all she can see in her mind is his face. The way his features fell during that last conversation.

 _I love you so much._

 _What are you doing?_

 _I have to go._

For the sake of a happily ever after she's single-handedly destroying. Kate sighs and peels her eyes open, stares through the slits in the blinds of the bedroom window, watching the sweep of snow through the sky. So devastating and beautiful. Killing her with its chill.

 _Why are you giving up on our marriage?_

 _I'm trying to save it._

 _By leaving me?_

She sits up, dragging the comforter even tighter around her shoulders and pulling her knees to her chest, scooting back against the headboard. She's cold and exhausted, concerned about him even though he's probably fine. He has Alexis, his mother, and severe weather or not, he's safe as long as she's not there.

Doesn't stop her from worrying about him. With the power lines down, cell service is scarce, her phone hardly able to attain a signal, and to feel so cut off from him has her stomach twisting in unbearable knots. It's bad enough staying away from him every day, but during a damn near natural disaster like this?

She should be with her husband.

Kate bites her lip, battling with the idea, but her mind already knows its going to lose.

The brutal beating of ice and snow, the paralyzing chill of the single digit temperatures, should keep their enemies away, right? LokSat wouldn't come for them in a blizzard. No matter how powerful, the person behind the conspiracy can't withstand a snowstorm, even to kill Kate Beckett. They aren't superhuman.

Neither is she. But it doesn't stop her from casting her gaze to her coat at the foot of the bed. The place she's renting isn't that far of a walk from the loft and the snow blowing past her window isn't _that_ strong right now. A brief lull in the storm's intensity, perfect timing. It isn't smart, isn't safe, but she can barely feel her fingers, her toes, as it is, and her mind is numb with him.

It's worth a walk in the cold.

Kate drags the blankets with her to the edge of the bed as snags her snow boots from the floor, slips on an extra pair of socks.

 _I hope that you'll have room in your heart to take me back,_ she told him.

She hopes he'll have room now.

* * *

Kate underestimates the winter storm and overestimates herself. She isn't ready for the bite of the windchill, fails to anticipate the tiny knives of sleet that soar through the air to slice at her cheeks or the howling wind that throws snow in her eyes. She doesn't think about how fighting through the elements will cause a five minute walk to take fifteen. Or how by the time she's finally stumbling through the lobby doors, she won't be able to feel anything.

She's dressed in as many layers as she could, but it hardly makes a difference. The burning chill started in her toes, her fingertips, and simply spread from there, turning her blood to ice that weighed heavy, slowed her down. She almost forgets that there won't be any warmth to greet her once she enters the lobby to his building, dark and as cold as the outside. She forgets that there's no working elevator either.

Castle has always lived on the top floor. It's going to be a long climb.

Kate swallows hard and adjusts the scarf at her chin, tucking her face into the soft fabric that's become dusted in snow.

But at least inside their building, there's no ice raining down on her, no ferocious flurries to tangle and melt in her hair, no wind to make her eyes water and sting.

The five story climb does her some good, cracks her frigid joints and stirs heat through the frozen lake of her bloodstream, but by the time she's finally on his floor, shuffling down the hall to his door, she's out of breath and sound mind. She knocks without even sparing a moment to think of what to _say_.

But she can't be bothered to care. She walked through a blizzard to get here and she'll gladly take whatever consequence that carries, it can't be any worse.

She's an idiot and she can't stop shivering. Her lips are chapped and her teeth keep chattering, catching on the broken flesh of her mouth and drawing blood. She wouldn't blame him if he answered the door and turned her away without a second thought. Why would he want a woman who not only breaks his heart, but is also crazy enough to go out in weather conditions categorized as a 'bomb cyclone'?

Kate leans her head against the doorframe.

Castle deserves better. He deserves-

"Kate?"

Her eyes flutter open, she didn't realize they were closed, and she lifts her head from the door. He's standing in the entryway in his full winter gear - thick coat, gloves, scarf, a cute little beanie tugged down on his head. But somehow, despite the chill the entire city is fighting, he still looks warm, inviting, a radiator of heat.

"Cas-" Her teeth clash over his name, slice it in half with their chattering, and his eyes widen.

"Were you _outside_ in this?" He automatically tears one of the gloves from his hands and presses the back of his hand to her cheek like he's attempting to gauge her temperature. She can barely feel it. "Of course you were. Kate, you're _freezing_ ," he growls, flipping his hand to cup his palm to her cheek. "How did you get here?"

"W-walked," she admits, can't manage to explain past that. It's all a blur at this point anyway. All she remembers is a whirlwind of white around her, trying to push her back but failing to stall her determination to just keep walking. She wasn't the only one out on the streets, but she was probably the only one stupid enough to trudge across downtown to go back to where she should have been all along.

"Jesus, are you insane?" he breathes, jerking her inside. She isn't sure when he grabbed her by the arm, but she doesn't object to the sway of her body towards him. "Are you actually insane?"

Kate sighs, lets herself be herded inside. She doesn't really have a choice, can't exactly feel her legs, but she does snag the lapel of Rick's coat with one of her trembling sets of fingers. He covers them without question, draws them to his lips, and stains heated breath to her knuckles.

"Why are you even here?" he demands, but his voice is soft, scared. Worried about her. "You tell me you need time, then you trek across the city in the worst possible weather for no valid reason? I don't understand-"

"Place I'm renting is only a few minutes from here," she mumbles, watching her knuckles slip to his chin. "I just wanted to come home."

His eyes flicker, a vibrant ripple of blue, and - oh, Castle, no. But - she doesn't have the heart to tell him that she doesn't mean for good. Not yet.

"Home to me?" he murmurs, trailing his hand down her side to touch her waist. Somehow, she manages to feel the press of his palm beneath the thick layering of her clothes. "Or were you just in need of a body with a bed to keep you warm?"

She startles back at that, the venom in his words snapping her out of the cold induced lull. But Castle's grip tightens at her hip before she can move away, stilling her even as she purses her lips, looks away.

"You know that's bullshit," she mutters, tugging her hand from his grasp at his chin. "Wouldn't just use you like that."

He sighs. "I know."

Castle lets go of her hip to catch her hand between both of his, rubbing his palms back and forth across her skin like he's trying to start a fire with the smooth friction.

"You make me mean, bitter," he grumbles, leaning in to skim his lips along the edge of an eyebrow while he sparks the painful return of warmth through her flesh. Her lashes flutter at the touch. "I'm usually better at keeping it to myself. But it's cold and I'm tired and you're here."

"Want me to go?" she asks, watching his lips purse into a frustrated line.

"Even if I did, I'd never send you out in this weather," he scoffs, leaning past her to shut the door. "Although, it obviously wouldn't make a difference if you had your mind set on it."

"Goal orientated person, Castle," she murmurs finally tearing her eyes from his face to examine the loft around them. Candles flickers on every other flat surface, casting enough light to almost give the illusion of restored power. He has the stove on, blue flames alight in the kitchen, and not exactly a blanket fort in the living room, but a... is that a tent? "Why do you have a tent?"

His laugh is weak, but the hint of amusement has the best kind of warmth generating inside of her.

"I read somewhere online before we lost power that a good tent can provide decent insolation. I also found these little battery powered heaters. They're really small, but if you turn them all on, it can get really warm in there, especially when I huddle in my sleeping bag," he explains, looking rather proud of himself. It has her yearning to kiss the upturned corner of his mouth in reward.

"You're so smart," she murmurs, watching his gaze flash back to her. He's expecting a quip, a sardonic smile - the genuine compliment has him frowning at her.

"Do you think you have hypothermia?" he whispers, looking genuinely concerned now, lifting both hands to her face.

She huffs. "No. Well, not in my brain. Maybe my toes. Can't really feel those."

"Shit, Kate," he groans, all of the amusement slipping away, succumbing to the fear driven anger again. "Why couldn't you just come back before? Why did you leave in the first place?" He lets go of her face. "Why did you have to do this?"

"Castle-" But he's already taking a step back from her, rubbing a hand over his jaw, suddenly looking every year older than her and she hates it, hates when she does that to him.

"You were happy with me," he murmurs, casting his gaze to the tent over his shoulder with another sigh. "I thought you were happy."

"I was, I - you never stopped making me happy," she argues, but he won't turn his attention back to her. She knows she hurt him, but it aches worse than the cold to see just how much. "Rick, it isn't anything you did-"

He scoffs, the bitterness back and sharp. "Spare me the 'it's not you, it's me' line, Beckett. Just get in the tent and warm up before you have to lose a finger or something."

"It's a New York snowstorm, not you and me trapped on a mountain," she mutters, rolling her eyes at his dramatics, but he curls his fingers at the collar of her coat.

"You went out in dangerously cold weather and walked from... from wherever the hell your new home is to get here, spending who knows how long out there-"

"It's not my new home," she hisses, shoving on his chest, but he doesn't let go of her. "It's a crappy little apartment that's cheap and _temporary._ And I walked through the snow to be here with you, you idiot. Because all I was doing was worrying about you while I was freezing my ass off. That's all I ever do now is worry about you, if you're in danger, if you're safe enough, if I'm doing the right thing-"

"You're not," he growls, dropping his hand from her coat. "In what way, for what purpose, is _leaving_ _me_ ever the right thing?"

She pins her bottom lip between her teeth, ignoring the sting of torn flesh, but the pain in her lip distracts her from the ever widening fault line through her chest, the cracks in her heart.

"I don't think it was anymore," she confesses on an exhale. Castle's brow furrows, scrutinizing her. He's going to figure it out all on his own, theorizing aloud like this, and she needs to stop him before-

"What are you doing?" The same words he said to her the night she left, his eyes hard and assessing her with the same confusion, with anger and fear and everything in between while she broke his heart. "Kate. What did you do?"

She's trembling again, but it's not from the cold. Rick must think it is, though, and moves into action.

"Okay, okay, let's just - you need to warm up," he states, hooking his fingers in the crook of her elbow and drawing her after him towards the tent he has set up in the middle of the living room. He unzips the main panel, revealing a cove lit softly by the glow of a lantern and the tiny power indicators of at least three heaters inside. The giant sleeping bag he brought to her dad's cabin, last summer when she convinced him to go camping with her in the woods, splayed out in the middle. The sheets and comforter from their bedding is laid out inside too, their pillows strewn all around. A nest of comfort, warmth that calls to her immediately, but she hesitates when he nudges her forward. "Take off a couple of layers and then-"

"Crawl in with me."

She looks back at him, not trying to hide the spill of pleading through her gaze. They have to talk, she knows he'll poke and prod at her until she cracks, until she ends up confessing every secret, the real reason she stayed away, but for now, this is what she trekked through ten inches of snow and freezing winds for.

She just wants to crawl into a warm bed (or sleeping bag) with her husband.

"For body heat?" he asks, arching his brow.

Kate rolls her eyes and turns her back to the open slit of the tent, feeling the precious warmth leaking into the cold air of the apartment, but takes her time in sealing her palm to his cheek. He doesn't object to the curl of her fingers, his eyes falling shut at the touch. His skin is soft under her fingertips, warm and peppered with stubble as she caresses his jaw.

"No." She slides her hand down to the vulnerable skin just below his jaw, along his pulse, where his skin is hot and thriving. "Because I miss you."

Rick opens his eyes, so dull and grey, but with a hint of that bright blue she's missed peeking through.

She brushes her thumb to the delicate skin beneath his eye, stained purple from sleepless nights. "And I'm sorry."

The trickle of blue spreads, cascading with the fall of his gaze to her lips, the sway of his body into hers.

"It's not enough."

"I know," she murmurs, stroking her fingertips to the corner of his mouth, over the frown lines there, before lowering her hand to the zipper of her coat. It's puffy, long and thick and worth the money she spent on it years ago, it conceals the pea coat underneath, the hoodie hiding beneath that. "Can it be a start?"

She drops the two coats to the floor beside the tent, watches Castle shrug out of his before he bumps her with his hip, nodding.

"Maybe. Come on, Beckett, I want to get back in my tent. You're letting all the warmth out," he prompts, smirking as she huffs.

But she ducks her head and descends to her knees to crawl inside the tent, checking over her shoulder to ensure he's following.

He is.


	2. Chapter 2

Never would she have imagined Castle to react with anything but eagerness at the prospect of sharing a sleeping bag with her. But after she feels his eyes following the shimmy of her hips, the jeans she kicks from her leg to join their pile of coats and boots outside the tent, she notices he looks anxious to even touch her.

"What?" she murmurs, running her palms up and down her calves. They're encased in knit leggings, but her muscles are still gripped in ice, her bones sheathed in it.

"Just weird," he shrugs, mimicking her and resting his palms atop his shins. She almost wants to admonish him for simply wearing those stupid flannel pajama pants he loves so much. She knows he has thermals buried with his ski clothes somewhere in their closet, those would keep him so much warmer. "Not how I expected you first night back in the loft to be."

"It's cozy," she muses, slipping her toes beneath the mountain of blankets. She wants to burrow them beneath his legs, wiggle her feet into the body heat he's always so willingly given her, but he doesn't owe her anything anymore. Not after how she's treated him over these past few weeks, months, after leaving him alone.

"Where's Alexis, your mom?" she asks, but the question hardly fazes him.

"Taking a mini vacation to California to avoid the cold," he mumbles, glaring at his knees.

She arches an eyebrow, only has to sway slightly towards him to knock his shoulder with her own in the confined space of the tent. "Why aren't you with them?"

"I didn't feel like it." His jaw squares. "Besides, you were going to be here and if something happened, I needed to be-"

"Castle," she sighs, quiet and shameful. "You didn't need to stay for-"

"Tell me why you left." Kate pauses, but he refuses to let the silence linger this time. "I won't do this again with you, talk through subtext or pretend there's nothing wrong-"

"I'm not asking you to," she murmurs, curling her knees to her chest and bowing her spine forward to prop her chin to her patella. She's warming up in the tent, the little heaters the size of her fist doing a spectacular job, but her body temperature is the farthest thing from her mind now. She still feels cold.

"Was I suffocating you?"

Her head whips towards him. "What?"

"Was it too much? Or just not enough. Was Bracken right? Was it never going to be enough for you all along-"

" _No_ ," she croaks, her hand shaking as she thoughtlessly scrapes it through her hair. He's staring her down, waiting, but she squeezes her eyes shut. Her heart is cracking and so does her voice. "I don't want you to get hurt."

"You already hurt me," he rumbles, the growl in his throat simultaneously shaming her and heating her up. He shifts closer in the confined space, the warmth of his chest at her shoulder. She turns her head towards him, eyes still closed, and swallows hard.

"Not me, not - not your heart," she sighs, biting her bottom lip. "I just wanted you to be safe."

She takes a deep breath, realizes that she came here tonight with every intention of coming clean, didn't she?

"I never stopped investigating LokSat."

He groans, but she can handle his anger, she's grateful for it. She'll take anger over heartbreak any day. "Are you kidding me? That's what this is about? What happened to partners, Beckett?"

"Partners protect each other," she snaps, her eyes finally flaring open to find him crouched beside her, face buried in his hands.

"Protect _each other_ ," he agrees, sounding so tired, worn by her. She wears him down so easily these days. She needs to fix it, put him back together and build him back up. "That's a dual effort. Not a self-sacrificing one. You have my back, I have yours. You did the opposite of that. You lied to me."

She blinks, but no, she didn't mean to... it wasn't about lying, she wasn't trying to lie to him. Not again.

 _Sinning by silence, Beckett. Remember that one?_

"If I wasn't with you, they wouldn't hurt you," she murmurs, the mantra she's been murmuring to herself for over three months now.

"You really believe that?" he laughs, but he just looks so... so disappointed with her and somehow that's worse than fury. "I thought - we're supposed to be stronger together. You're supposed to be my wife."

Her hands fist, nails cutting into her palms. "I never stopped being your wife."

"You made me spend our first anniversary alone," he growls and the cracks in her heart multiply, run through the interior of the muscle and cause the crumbling to begin. She's wasted so much time, missed so many moments in these past three months without him, but the fact that he was spending that time alive was her consolation. At least, it was supposed to be.

"The thought of something happening to you, losing you..." She closes her eyes, but the tears still leak free. Dammit. "I couldn't handle it. I've lost almost everyone to this case in some way, Castle. I couldn't lose the most important person in my life too. Not like that."

He's unmoving for a long moment, silent too, and she expects him to leave her alone in the tent, to find warmth elsewhere, away from the chill of lies and betrayals she's brought in with her. But then he's easing closer, thigh pressing against hers, arm banding around her shoulders. Kate immediately sinks into his side.

"Do you ever think about what it would do to me? Losing the person I love?"

She turns her face into his neck, sucking in a breath that breaks, has her biting back a sob against his throat.

Castle only holds her tighter, his cheek sealing to her forehead while one of his hands tangles in her hair. It steadies her, anchors her, and she lifts one of her hands to his chest, clutches the fabric of his sweater in a fist.

"Kate, I love you." The fragile structure of her heart finally collapses, leaving her ribcage in wreckage and causing her sternum to shudder against his. "And if you love me back, you have to stop doing this to me, to yourself," he mumbles into her hair. "No more selfless bullshit. I'm all in for everything. The good and the bad - we handle it all together."

She nods, calming herself with the comfort of his scent in her nose and the warmth of him surrounding her again.

"I'm sorry," she sighs, pressing her forehead to his clavicle. "I just - all I want is to fix this."

"We will. As soon as the power comes back and it's warm enough to leave the tent, we'll go over everything you have on LokSat and come up with a plan together, like we should have all along-"

"No," she huffs, raising her head to meet his furrowed brow and frowning mouth. It has her releasing another sigh, craning her neck to touch a kiss to that downturned corner of his lips. "I was talking about us," she mumbles, pressing her nose to the soft skin of his cheek, feeling the gentle exhale of his breath against her chin. "Everything else comes second to you and me. I thought I was protecting you, us - I've been spending every spare moment trying to figure out any leads, because the quicker I ended LokSat, the quicker I got to come home. Getting back to you has been the only thing keeping me going, Castle."

She shakes her head. Now that she's saying it aloud to him, now that he's said his piece in it all... she broke both of their hearts for nothing, didn't she?

"No more," he murmurs, dropping his chin to knock his forehead into hers, stare straight into her gaze with a warning in his.

"No," she tells him, skating a hand down to his hip, trying to draw him closer, needing him as close as possible. He may be a writer, words mean a lot to him, but so does touch, physical gestures and proximity. She can give him all of that, give him everything back.

Some of the uncertainty fades, but he's still studying her, sweeping his eyes over her face in search of any fault in her truth. She doesn't blame him, not after the past three months of unintentional deception, of prominent heartache.

Let him look, let him see it all; she has nothing left to hide.

"What happens now?" he murmurs, tracing the curve of her eyebrow with his thumb before it can arch in question. "What do you want?"

It's the easiest question he could ask her. Always has been.

"You." She refrains from flicking her gaze to his mouth like she wants to, keeping her eyes locked on his instead. "Whatever comes next with LokSat, with anything else, I don't want to do any of it without you."

The tension twined around his spine begins to drain beneath her hands on his back, relief seeping through the recently developed lines branching out from his eyes, quoting his mouth.

"Come back home." He skims his thumb along the sharp bone of her cheek. "Stay here."

"Please," she sighs, but it's hardly a plea at all. Just relief. So much relief.

She almost wrecked her marriage, almost ruined this.

"Even once the storm passes."

Kate tilts her chin, lips grazing over his. "As far as I'm concerned, it already has."

* * *

"I don't want you to be cold," he mumbles, but she can only hum. She can't stop humming with it, the happiness buzzing like warmth through her veins, trembling through her bones, and indulging the smile she keeps succumbing to in their kisses

"Baby, it's cold outside," she teases, grinning as he huffs against her lips. "But warm in the tent."

They're tangled up in the bedding he dragged in from their room, her head on his pillow and Castle's body draped atop hers beneath the blankets, making out in the tent. She barely notices that the power is out, that they're down one heater. She doesn't need them anymore.

Kate tucks her fingers past the waistband of his pajama pants, his boxers, biting her bottom lip.

"And skin to skin contact is the best way to preserve body heat."

He arches an eyebrow. "That so?"

His thigh slides between hers, his hand beneath the layers of her hoodie, her shirt. Kate sucks in a breath, heart pounding with need and everything she's been missing.

"You'll keep me warm," she murmurs, coasting her hands up his sides, dragging his long sleeve shirt up with her fingers. Castle sits up, the top of his head skimming the ceiling of the tent, and tugs the shirt over his head. She's always loved his body, appreciated it, but now, she aches for it.

She reaches for the zipper to her jacket, rolling her shoulders and tossing the hoodie to the side, fingers tripping to the hem of her shirt. Castle beats her to it.

"Hey, is this mine?" He plucks at the worn black fabric that's a little too loose on her. God, how pathetic. She didn't even realize- "I knew you took my clothes."

"I like your clothes," she shrugs. She can't hide it, so she might as well embrace it. "Took a lot of them."

He gasps and she grins, tightens her thighs at his hips.

"Helped to have a few of your things," she murmurs, but refuses to indulge the sorrow that threatens to breach the light in her chest.

"Take me back to your place once this is all over," Rick suggests, leaning over her again, the shirt still trapped between them. "Let me help you pack."

He's challenging her, pushing, testing to see if she'll protest to the implication of packing, bringing her stuff back home. But Kate shakes her head. "Not much to pack. And I don't want to take you there, it's depressing. Just an empty apartment to sleep in."

She expects for him to point out again how she never should have left, to tell her all the reasons she made the wrong decision, he has every right to rub the wound raw. But she should know better.

Castle simply dusts his lips to her forehead. "You'll have my full wardrobe at your disposal in the meantime. You already know you look good in my clothes."

Kate rolls her eyes, but his hands are slipping beneath his shirt to explore her body in rediscovery, scaling scars new and old, lighting her skin on fire.

"I just want to stay here," she murmurs, a pointless statement but all she knows to be true anymore. Screw LokSat, screw all the reasons she justified as necessary to distance herself from Castle, to keep him safe. She can't stay away, not for long. Never for long.

"Good, because you don't have a choice anymore," he quips, only half joking. "Shouldn't have let you leave that first night, Kate-"

"It's not on you and it's over." She dusts her fingertips along the upturned curve of his mouth. "Enough. I'm home."

He's still angry at her, she can taste it in the press of his mouth to hers, the insistence of his tongue, and the bite of his teeth. But he's willing to forgive, she can feel that too in the way he slows to caress her bottom lip, the stroke of his tongue growing almost too erotic for her to handle after nearly three months apart.

Kate curves her hand at his nape, joining the other in cupping his skull, and rises into his kiss. Her tired heart exalts with relief, with want, with the sensation of home that embraces her with his arms.

* * *

The power thrums back to life while she's lying on top of him, half asleep and spent, sated. Both of them startle at the sudden return of electricity humming through the air, her heartbeat spiking with a painful kick and her head lifting from his chest. Her hand automatically jerks to her hip, where her gun would be if she wasn't naked and lying in a sleeping bag with her husband.

"Just the power, sweetheart," Castle husks, his voice thick with sleep and the residual heat of all they managed to accomplished in the cramped space of the tent. He tugs the comforter higher at her back and returns his arm to drape across her spine, his chest expanding with an exhale beneath hers.

Her heart calms, settles with the rise and fall of his, but she doesn't return her cheek to rest upon his shoulder. Not yet. She lets her body sink and relax into his, legs sliding to tangle with his and ribcages slotting into place, while her eyes roam his face. The lantern in the corner casts shadows across his cheek, soft streaks of light over his features, content and peaceful, beautiful. Worth walking through a blizzard for.

"Creepy staring," he muses, cracking an eye open to meet her gaze. "You haven't done that since we first started sleeping together."

Kate scoffs, but eases forward to touch her lips to the high of his cheekbone, the bridge of his nose, his chin. He shivers beneath her, shifts to draw her body in more snugly against his.

"Are you good? We can move to the bed if you want," he murmurs, his fingers combing through the tangles of her hair, wild and kinking from the melted snow and the work of his hands. "And I can turn the thermostat up."

Kate hums, but shakes her head.

"I'm good. I like this," she admits, the corner of her mouth quirking. "Making love with you in a tent."

His chest rumbles beneath hers and her smile reaches full bloom.

"We can keep the tent up as long as you want," he promises, tracing her ear with his thumb.

"Just the rest of tonight, until it's warm in here again," she compromises on a yawn, burying her face in his throat. "I still missed our bed."

"I've missed you in the bed," he concedes, but his voice isn't tainted with sorrow. He's too lazy and love drunk to be sad.

Kate tilts her chin to stain her mouth to the underside of his jaw.

"I'll take a few days off this week, we'll spend some extra time getting reacquainted with the bed. Working on forgiveness."

Castle lowers his head to look at her, the corner of his mouth twitching. "You sure you don't have hypothermia in the brain?"

"No, just missed you." She props one of her arms atop his chest, lets her hair fall over her shoulder to skim his sternum. "And it's kinda hard for you to do any proper naked punishing in a tent."


End file.
